They're remaking this and I don't know why. I thought the first one pretty much got the job done, but I suppose there's not enough CGI in it or something. We'll see what happens, but I don't have a lot of hope for it.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Which always happens to the people in Lovecraft's stories who confront horrors that their minds can't comprehend.

It's that thing that a mind can't comprehend which fires the imagination. What does madness look like? What does it sound like? Can it be captured and viewed? And can the viewer escape with their minds intact? Could we escape that horror that Lovecraft shares with us?

Take this gorgeous mess, for example. It's supposed to be "The Color Out of Space", but it's really a very sad tale of people who don't understand radiation. This is made especially sad by the fact that the hero and his lady love studied "science" together in the States.

In case you haven't caught on, Boris Karloff wasn't too hep on walking in his final days. I'm afraid that Christopher Lee is going the same way and now accepting "sitting" roles. I'm really going to miss him.

Oh, "Color Out of Space", why can't anyone treat you right? Are you truly unfilmable?

Dude, at least Dean Stockwell is trying, which is more than I can say for anyone else in this flick.

Was Sam Jaffe always that age?

FINALLY! Someone gets it!

NOOOOOOOOOO! You had a good thing going! Why'd you have to mess it up?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

I don't know how long these videos will be good, so it's worth catching them while you can.

Retitled "Spirits of the Dead" in the English release, "Histoires extraordinaires" is from the first collection of Poe's short stories translated by French poet Charles Baudelaire. The film has three directors and covers three stories and I'm going to embed "Toby Damnit" here. It's based on this story.

I can't get enough Edgar Allen, and neither can a slew of film-makers. I won't say he's the most adapted writer (that prize goes to the committee that put the Bible together), but it's a strong showing.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Back in the mid 80s it was a golden age of trashy videos. The same year that Jackie Chan's My Lucky Stars and Police Story hit the theatres of Hong Kong Mr. Vampire set off a Hopping Vampire craze.

Wearing Qing Dynasty robes, arms outstretched, and hopping, the vampires of Mr. Vampire have became the iconic standard for every Chinese Vampire movie that followed. There's some of Halloween's Michael Myers and John Ford's Thing From Another World in the relentless attacks of Mr. Vampire. This is an unstoppable undead kung fu killing creature that just keeps attacking. But lucky for us we've got Lam Ching Ying.

Lam Ching Ying plays a Taoist priest who is training two students, who don't know much about Jiang Shi (a.k.a. hopping vampires). So we learn all the "rules" about how to prevent and fight hopping vampires right along with them. And boy howdy there's a boatload of rules.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Papi Gudia is the Bollywood version of Child's Play. It's low budget, has lots of cringe worthy moments, and an off the shelf stand in for Chucky that's not so much scary as it is pathetic. And it's pretty entertaining.

How can you not love a movie with that has this little musical number in it?

If you're a fan of Child's Play you may not like Papi Gudia. But if you're a fan of MST3K you'll find plenty to riff at. Heck, call your friends over and riff away. Watch Papi Gudia online and tell us of any drinking games you come up with in the comments.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Here's a quick little video of Spielberg talking about how the sound of a film can do more to frighten an audience. Or, I should say in this case, the lack of sound.

Again, at the end, silence.

The shark was supposed to be seen many more times than made it to the final cut. Sadly (but lucky for us!), the mechanical sharks broke down frequently, forcing Spielberg to shoot many scenes with a hint of shark, rather than the actual thing.

And, I think, the shark is a more powerful and frightening monster when you can't see it. It's a nightmare, hidden and horrifying, but with great effect over the lives of those it encounters. The boat gets knocked around and everyone is afraid of something they can't see. It taps into our fear of the dark, of shadows, of what might or might not be lurking under the bed.

You cannot fight what you cannot see.

I'd like to dedicate this clip to Jim Lehrer and his creepy, creepy eyes.

Taken out of context, this is just a heart-breaking retelling. I love the language--the cadence--of it: almost musical. I'm getting all sappy listening to the hurt and fear of something that was just under the surface.

You didn't see a shark attack; you saw the result. Sometimes, you didn't see anything at all, just a man screaming in the night.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Universal's Monsters have been adapted and rebooted into sitcoms, cartoons, remakes and Abbot and Costello movies. Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolfman, The Mummy, They're barely recognisable in Monster Force.

I don't remember when I got this on DVD. But watching it for the first time was horrifying, like a sharp poke in the eyes. I was expecting a bad cartoon, but just not as bad as this.

I'm guessing this cartoon was made to promote a line of action figures. The designs are somewhere between Filmation's Ghostbusters and The Toxic Crusaders, yet some how not nearly as pleasing. The premise of this series is basicly the same as The Monster Squad except with superheros instead of a bunch of neighborhood kids. How could that go wrong? You'd be surprised.

I was going to compare Monster Force with Toei's Tomb of Dracula, except I think Tomb of Dracula is much more entertaining.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

I can still name all the voice actors. Frank Welker was Ray, Lorenzo Music was Peter, Maurice LeMarche was Egon, and Arsenio Hall was Winston. At that time, I had a little fantasy in my head that some day I would be on The Arsenio Hall Show and I would ask him if they took turns making monster sounds, or if Frank Welker just did them all. This was when I started to really pay attention to voice actors and what they were doing.

I remember playing "truth or dare" with a friend in 7th grade and I had to admit I watched the show. As it turned out, so did she. We spent the rest of the night geeking out over our shared love of this cartoon (and talking about how much soap operas sucked, which is what the rest of our classmates watched).

Did you know there are whole episodes on YouTube? I was delighted to discover that.

This is the first episode I ever saw. I immediately programmed our VCR to record future episodes. I was not going to miss another one.

A clever device, the television. This is actually one of my favorite episodes.

New voice talents! Buster Jones is Winston now. Dave Coulier (of Out of Control fame) is Peter, and Laura Summer has been replaced by Kath Soucie as Janine. This is one of the most meta things I've ever seen.

Wait. Who wrote that? They guy who created Babylon 5? Oh yeah...he was the story editor. My sister and I used to watch for his name in the credits. If he'd written an episode, we knew it would be good.

Now, a bit of fun trivia: Peter was played by Bill Murry in the movies, but by Lorenzo Music in the cartoon. Lorenzo Music was the voice of Garfield in the cartoons, but by Bill Murry in the movie.

I want to start out by presenting the most horrifying Casper cartoon I could find. Yes, of all his many incarnations it has to be Casper and The Angels.

Now for something that poses some odd questions about the afterlife and Casper's place in it there's this gem. There's Good Boos Tonight not only has the most inappropriate title, but the ending will run you through an emotional rollercoaster.

FERDIE!

Please do not reveal the secret ending of Casper the Friendly Ghost: There's Good Boos Tonight to your friends.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

If the message is the medium then certainly the Fox Sisters are as American as it gets. It's a recognisable tale: A meteoric rise to fame. International celebrity. A falling out. A descent in to alcoholism, and poverty. And along the way they inspired a cultural movement. The influence of the Fox Sisters can still be seen today in the popularity of docutainment haunting shows and maybe even The Kardashians.

An apartment I had, when I was married: we had three ghosts. We had a young man who would walk through the living room, a grandma in the kitchen (always cooking), and a young woman who went up and down the stairs.

I can't say these were ghosts per se. These were figures you saw out of the corner of you eye. If you looked at them directly, they were not there.

When I saw them, I never said anything about it. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was hungry. Sure, I saw them, but I thought very little of them.

To me, they were like seeing a footprint in a mud-puddle. They did not try to communicate with me, but they just were. I did my thing; they did theirs. So be it.

The toughest part about having ghosts is you can't put in a ticket to have the apartment sprayed for them. They're worse than roaches in that regard.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

You've seen movies like this: the stilted dialog, the strange hints that things are not as they seem, the cast of idiots who take everything at face value.

Oh, goody. He found the cave.

Buck Naked (of Subgenius fame), once came into Dan's Lakewood Cafe with a feral girl he'd found digging around in his backyard. She didn't put her face in her food, but she did curl her arm around her plate of grilled cheese and fries and glowered at anyone who got too close.

I remember her grabbing the fries by the fist-full and gnawing on whatever stuck out over the heel of her hand. I was more disgusted by the fact that she hadn't washed her hands first.

Buck's girl didn't do any dance numbers, but she didn't speak much either. I think Animala has cleaner fingernails.

Here's what was shown last Friday night at AWA. It was kind of a special Anime Hell; I went back into the mists of Hell Time and dredged up some old favorites from both the early Dragoncon all-night marathons and the more programmed events that followed. Finding a lot of the earlier clips was tough; some of the material didn't make the transition from VHS to DVD to digital file and casting around for it is a chore. The audience seemed to appreciate the older material; I tried to pick stuff that the audience liked and I felt was funny and representative of the older shows. Tons of stuff did NOT make the cut; looking back over the playlists it's shocking what I put out there to bore the audience with. As old as some of the material got, most of it delivered laughs. It's always somebody's first Anime Hell.

FRANKENSTEIN’S KUNG FU MONSTER will not be seen tonight so
that we may bring you this special presentation.